Director - Patient Safety (FT)

Purpose:

The Director of Patient Safety, under the direction of the Vice President of Patient Safety Dartmouth Health, will have overall strategic and operational responsibility throughout Dartmouth Health for enhancing value through quality assurance, innovation of programs and support of safety reporting.  This role will promote high reliability principles among Dartmouth Health administrative, nursing and medical staff leaders.  Additionally, this position ensures effective operation and provides leadership and oversight for quality programs and safety systems resources, practices, policies, and procedures.

Key Responsibilities:

1.    Promotes collaboration among team members and throughout the system for the development, implementation and evaluation of patient safety best practices.  
2.    Promotes an understanding of improvement needs, spreading knowledge of HRO principles through education and the identification of patient and workplace harm.
3.    Supports improvement work through consultation and presentation of data analysis and reports to clinical and administrative leadership.  Interacts with senior leadership and with external organizations and agencies.  
4.    Promotes event analysis of harm to patients, families, and team members using advanced techniques in apparent and root cause analysis.
5.    Exhibits strong communication, presentation and listening skills to ensure system wide collaboration and coordination.
6.    Analyzes trends, identifies and reports clinical quality and safety concerns and recommends system solutions and improvements.
7.    Supports patient safety improvement through the application of modern improvement thinking to all assigned initiatives.
8.    Optimizes a daily management strategy with the goal of improved reporting, local learning related to harm events and overall promotion of safety culture across the Dartmouth Health system 
9.    Empowers employees at all levels to be innovative and action-oriented while advancing a culture of accountability with clearly established lines of authority and decision-making.
10.    Offers innovative and interactive methodology to increase user involvement across the system while teaching and supporting the 
11.    Provides design expertise, implementation planning, and user technical and associated workflow support to assigned quality/safety software technology deployed across the Dartmouth Health system. 
12.    Recommends workflow modifications and software improvements to maintain the most efficient and effective standardized procedures related to technical quality and safety supportive tools across the Dartmouth Health system.
13.    Collaborates with IT and application teams in providing computer software system maintenance, design and troubleshooting. 
14.    Collaborates with IT and end-users to manage and execute assigned computer technology installations and upgrades, as well as new software platforms when necessary.
15.    Develops materials for and trains end users in specific technical operations and documentation standards. Informs Dartmouth Health System leadership of changes in software requirements or implementation schedules.
16.    Provides health technology assessments that includes analysis models, budget impact, and technical reports.  
17.    Maintains quality assurance and safety infrastructure and processes, which support improvement and patient safety, enable the collection, storage, and analysis of improvement and safety data, and enable compliance with external regulatory agency requirements and Patient Safety Organization (PSO) participation. 
18.    Develops and completes needs assessments and strategic business planning processes on a periodic basis for expansion of programs and services. Such assessments include timelines and resources needed to achieve strategic goals.
19.    Works with Systems CQO and Systems VP Patient Safety to organize and facilitate teamwork programs focused on error prevention behaviors
20.    Maintains high team engagement and positive relationships with all employees to enhance collaboration.
21.    Develops accounting structures with others that allows the reflection department resources and activity via annual budget planning and execution.
22.    Performs other duties as required or assigned.